Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Wicked Travel

I just got back from a visit to Copenhagen and it was some wicked travel. Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark and one of the oldest cities in Europe. It's a beautiful city with architecture and history in every direction.

I was only there a week but I learned a lot about Danish culture. The Vikings who are credited for being some of the best and furthest sailing warriors in history come from Denmark. Their long ships could use wind power and oars so were able to travel further than any other sailing vessel during their time. Thanks to these ships the Danish colonized the rest of Scandinavia and several other countries.

One of the biggest tourist attractions was the "Green Light District." The Green Light District is like the "Red Light District" in Amsterdam accept instead of prostitutes behind windows you have hash and weed. It's a small village named Freetown Christiania in the center of Copenhagen, full of squatters, hippies and artists. The Green light District was once an abandoned military base that squatters and hippies took over back in the 80's. Although it's in Copenhagen, Christiania has it's own laws and rules. The most important two rules are "No Violence and No hard drugs". During my visit there were several reggae artists scheduled to perform on a modest sized stage in the center of Christiania.

Aside from Christiania, there were museums, monuments and amusement park throughout Copenhagen. One place named Tivoli Gardens had an Amusement park with a full sized pirate ship refurbished into a restaurant. It also had cool rides and several varieties of exotic flowers for the tourists. There's also a shopping street named the "Stroget" that is famous for being the longest shopping street in the world.

Close to the Stroget were tattoo parlors with different styles of artists. I got a tattoo at the first tattoo parlor in Copenhagen. The place was small and covered in photos displaying the King of Denmark getting tattoos. The place had a old school look with new equipment and excellent artists. I got an "Infinity Wolf" tattoo by a talented artist named Orre.

Overall the trip was fun, informative and full of amazing experiences. In September I'm off to Bordeaux, France for a week. That's wine country so I foresee it being a fun trip. If you're curious about Copenhagen check some of the pics from the trip below.